Manually operated tube benders rely on human power and leverage to bend a workpiece such as a tube, pipe or rod. The manual tube bender is typically secured to the floor or another fixed structure. In the 1930s, a manual bender was developed that fixed the workpiece to the bender, and used a long lever to bend the workpiece. The problem with this design is that the larger or more rigid the workpiece, the long lever need to be and the more unobstructed floor space was needed to operate the device. In the 1980s, a manual tube bender was introduced that included a linear ratchet device to multiply the force of the lever. The problem with this design is that the linear ratchet had a length of about 18 inches, and could only produce a continuous bend of about 30°. Then, the workpiece had to be removed and realigned on the bender. In many instances the bender had to be partially disassembled and reassembled to set the workpiece to continue the bend. When the workpiece was being bent 180°, the operation was quite tedious and time consuming. There was also a safety concern in that the operator had to hold the work piece during the bending operation. In about 2000, the Rusch Model 100 was introduced. This design incorporated a drive wheel in place of the linear ratchet device to allow a continuous 180° bend. However, this design suffered from the same problem of the linear ratchet design, in that the power multiplier only advanced one ratchet tooth at a time. Easily bent workpieces had to be bent at the same rate of speed as larger and more rigid workpieces. This design was also expensive to manufacture.
The present invention is intended to solve these and other problems.